The other day I started reading a wonderful parenting book that has already helped me to enjoy being at home with my kids more. I came upon “Playful Parenting” by Lawrence J. Cohen the other day when I remembered that I had seen the book mentioned a while ago on one of the parenting websites that I visit regularly. I wondered whether the book could help me with an issue that I have been having lately.
It is an issue that I am sure I am not alone in experiencing, although not that many people talk about it. It can affect any parent, whether they are at home with their kids all of the time or whether they work outside of the home. It affects mothers, and fathers too. Sometimes we become so wrapped up in just getting everybody through the day fed, clothed, and clean as well as attending to our domestic responsibilities like cooking, dishes, laundry, and the many other things that we have on our plates that it all seems like one big unending parade of chores. Sometimes we engage with our children, but other times their requests for attention or requests that we play with them can grate on our nerves and annoy us – don’t they know that we have a lot of important things to attend to? We become anxious, frazzled, frustrated, and sometimes even resentful and we find ourselves wondering where all of the fun is that we are supposed to be having with our children.
Once I remembered that I had seen a book about “Playful Parenting”, I began to wonder whether a book with such a title could help me to enjoy parenting more and maybe even encourage better behavior on the part of my boys. I love to read parenting books, and it has been a while since I last treated myself to one so I downloaded it onto my Kindle. As soon as I started reading, I found myself nodding my head in agreement. I realized that I had been missing many opportunities to inject lighthearted fun into our days, and that was more than likely affecting both me and my kids. I am about halfway through the book now, and I love it. Tomorrow I will share with you some of the reasons why “Playful Parenting” is such a great book and how it has “played out” for us so far.